On and off highway vehicles, construction equipment, and other work machines may use on-board batteries to crank and start their main engines. Cranking and starting a main engine may draw a significant amount of power from a work machine's on-board battery. Typically, the on-board battery may be designed to provide only three to four main engine cranking events before depleting the energy stored therein. Thus, if the engine fails to start after repeated attempts, and/or if the battery loses enough charge due to internal leakage, then the charge present in the battery may be insufficient to start the main engine. It may be both costly and time consuming to bring in the necessary service equipment to remedy such a problem.
Cold weather conditions may exacerbate battery problems because batteries tend to lose significant amounts of charge in low temperature conditions. In order to compensate for the effects of the cold weather conditions, the battery capacity of the work machine may be significantly expanded to increase the amount of battery power available for the main engine start-up. However, expanding the battery capacity of the work machine may involve providing a relatively large battery assembly consisting of, for example, four or more batteries wired together to collectively provide the necessary power for starting the main engine. However, if the work machine fails to start and the battery charge in the large battery assembly becomes depleted, then service may still be required. Due to the expanded capacity of the large battery assembly, attempting to jump-start the work machine using a typical tow truck or other on-highway vehicle may overly tax that vehicle's power system. Accordingly, the use of larger capacity jump-starting equipment may be necessary, which may further increase costs and time delay.
At least one system has been developed to assist a main engine start while reducing battery capacity. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,901 to Willis discloses an auxiliary power system that replaces a typical battery pack (four relatively large lead-acid batteries) of a heavy-duty diesel engine. Willis' auxiliary power system includes a small auxiliary diesel engine, an air compressor, a compressed air accumulator, and a pneumatic starter fluid coupled to the accumulator and mechanically coupled to start the heavy-duty diesel engine. By using a pneumatic-based starting system, the auxiliary power system in Willis allows the elimination of the large lead-acid starter batteries and allows the mounting of substantially all of the auxiliary power system in the space once occupied by those batteries. However, according to Willis, the accumulator is not normally part of the original equipment of the diesel engine and must be added with the auxiliary power assembly. Furthermore, in a retrofit application, the electric starter would have to be removed and replaced with a pneumatic or air starter. Thus it is apparent that use of Willis' auxiliary power system requires the removal, addition, and/or replacement of various diesel engine components. Furthermore, the addition of the pneumatic-based starting system and its related components may add to the complexity of the diesel engine. The added complexity may lead to increased costs associated with manufacturing, retrofitting, maintaining, and/or training operators and technicians to use and fix the new components.
The present disclosure is directed towards overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.